


Bittersweet Sunrise

by gracefulally



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-07-08
Updated: 2006-07-08
Packaged: 2017-10-21 05:56:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/221689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gracefulally/pseuds/gracefulally
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Takes place between "Darla" and "The Trial." Lindsey's determination to fix other people's problems knows no bounds and eventually catches up to him. Laughs and tears abound.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bittersweet Sunrise

My eyelids slowly peeled back and I saw nothing but a dim red light that was swimming through the haze of my vision. Blinking made the fuzzy image focus to be my bedside clock-radio. It was just after six o’clock in the morning. My alarm wouldn’t go off for another half hour. I had never woken up before the alarm. Why had I now?

Taking in a deep nasal breath, I brought a hand up to massage my lashes and brush away the dried crust that was result of my drunken slumber. I realized then that my right side felt decidedly cooler than the left. That was likely why I had roused and it made me smile a little. My head rolled on the pillow to rest on my opposite cheek as I glanced at the rest of the bed, expecting to see a sleeping Darla wrapped up in the warm sheets.

Only, she wasn’t there. And neither was the top blanket for my bed.

Arching a single brow that creased my forehead, I pulled myself up to a sitting position. A deep growling yawn escaped my chest as I scratched at my matted hair and looked around for Darla. My expression drooped into a pout. She wasn’t even in the bedroom anymore.

Throwing off the remaining cherry-colored sheet, I let my feet find the floor. My toes wiggled awake in the plush carpet as I stretched my back and neck while yawning once more. I would be lying if I said I didn’t feel somewhat content for the moment. Last night had been, well, it had been amazing. Too bad I had been shit-faced for most of the romp, though if I had been sober I likely would have stopped myself before letting it go so far.

Ambling with heavy steps—as the rest of me was still waking up—over to a dresser I fumbled with the top drawer before yanking out a clean pair of shorts. If I’d an audience at this point, they would likely think I was putting on a routine. Pulling on boxer-briefs is its own special little line-dance when you have two legs holes but only one hand to maneuver with. I winced a little when the nylon band drug across a welt on my upper thigh, residual of previous needy scratch marks. Again, last night in one word: amazing.

Following a few more groans, stretches, and readjustments, I padded out of my room with a very sleepy air about me. I was certainly curious as to where the blanket thief had gone, but the bathroom and shower were also calling my name for our morning routine. Going through those steps always woke me up like it was my own figurative cup of coffee. The routine had gotten a little longer now I that I had to do everything one-handed, but I had eventually learned to deal. I was not about to let _anything_ to do with Angel pitch me full-force into some sorry form of depression. Keeping to routines helped that.

However, this morning I barely made it across the threshold to jump and let out an unmanly hiss at the icy cold of the floor tiles on my bare feet when something in the living room caught my eye. Retreating back to carpet, I arched a brow at the sight of Darla with her back to me. She was wrapped in nothing but that blanket from my bed and hunched over something on the floor. My breath hitched when I noticed my _open_ briefcase on the sofa beside her. Fuck. No telling what she digging through.

“What are you doing?” I demanded as I stalked across the room, now fully awake thanks to those two little jolts of adrenaline I just received.

I’m pretty sure the little huffy noise she made was a scoff. “What does it look like I’m doing?” She asked in a patronizing tone, scrunching her face in disbelief as she looked over a paper-clipped stack in her hand. “I’m figuring out what your plan is for me.”

As I got closer, my eyes widened when I realized that she had managed to get her hands on the only file that I had been quietly pleading with whatever god that was listening—and clearly wasn’t—for her not to find.

“You weren’t supposed to see any of this,” I told her abruptly, like I meant for it to scold her. I didn’t know what annoyed me more: my carelessness of leaving the open briefcase out or her taking advantage of the moment.

“Why?” The question was a direct shot up to my face, as I was now standing over her, between her incessant thumbing through pages. “What big _scheme_ does your boss have now?”

I denied that with a stiff shake of my head. “This wasn’t his doing. It’s…” my voice awkwardly died off. I really didn’t want to get into this if I didn’t have to. “It’s nothing.”

Giving a derisive snort, she dropped the packet that was in her hand to pick up another form to examine. “Oh, that’s _really_ reassuring, Lindsey.”

Sighing, I ran a frustrated hand through my mussed hair. “Just trust me, Darla. It’s not what you think.” Nor was it something that I really wanted to explain to her.

A scowl pressed across her features as her face upturned from her reading once more. “How could you _possibly_ know what I think?”

“I mean, it would be best if you forget all of this and let me put it away,” I replied firmly as I knelt down to her, making that offended glare darken.

“What, Lindsey? What is it?” Darla demanded angrily before she shuffled the papers in front of her. “Why is there a birth certificate, release forms for medical records? A high school diploma? A marriage license!?” She picked up the last and thrust it at my face menacingly, likely unhappy that both of our names were on it.

I tried to ignore her reaction as I did have a perfectly good reason. There never had been a plan to tell her about what I was doing unless this all worked out and well, it hadn’t.

Reaching a hand up to take the paper out of her hand, I gave her an apologetic look. I didn’t want to do this. Not now. Not after last night. “Darla—“

“No,” she hissed as she clutched the paper to her pale skin. “Tell me. Tell me what sick little game you have planned.”

I tried to lower my gaze from her as this suddenly felt so very wrong, but something told me that if I broke that stare, if I lied to her one more time, she would never speak to me again when she found out. And I couldn’t stand the thought of that.

The betrayed look on her face made the words start to tumble before I had even considered what all I was saying. “It’s a fake background to help you get on a transplant list.”

“What?” The piece of paper started to crumple beneath tensed fingers as her eyes widened, the fleeting hint of fear passing over them.

“It was the only other thing I could think of to do,” I explained quietly as I extracted the battered license from her grip before doing my best to smooth it on the floor.

“I don’t understand what you mean.” Her face contorted in her confusion and she arched a curious brow. “A transplant for what?”

Wincing, I realized that I had said too much. She really did have no idea what was happening to her. Holland would kill me if he could hear this conversation.

“Never mind,” I said quickly as I shook my head and started gathering the other papers that were spilled in a semicircle around her. “Just forget about it, all right? It doesn’t matter now anyway.”

“No, I want to know.” Her protest was accompanied by a clammy hand that wrapped anxiously around my good wrist making me stop my busy work. When I didn’t look up to her, nails pressed insistently into my skin. “ _Tell me_ , a transplant for what, Lindsey?”

After I nearly choked while swallowing the sudden lump the size of a grapefruit in my throat, my stomach made a plunge for my toes that were grinding and flexing anxiously into the carpet. Of course, I had gone and opened my big flapping mouth and was going to make this much more stressful than I ever intended it to be. I didn’t want to do this now. Not like this. She wouldn’t understand. Heck, I barely even understood what was happening. I'd been blindsided by the snafu myself. The firm wanted it to be kept from her until it would be most useful, but damn it, Darla was a human being not a lab rat.

Taking in a strangled breath as I felt my throat tighten, I raised my chin so I could look her in the eye. The broken trust I saw in her unblinking gaze bore right through me and my hesitation. “Your heart,” I said flatly before swallowing hard as I damn near choked on the words anyhow.

The slight coloring that she had in her face slowly left to leave her ghostly pale. “My heart?” she repeated miserably before the grip on my wrist weakened.

“Yes,” I whispered as I let my hand twist to catch hers loosely for a concerned squeeze.

Darla’s eyes closed in defeat as her chin dipped her face away from me. I ran my thumb over her trembling one, hoping she wouldn’t cry though it was completely understandable if she wanted to. I wanted to myself. The heavy ache in my chest was almost making it difficult to breathe. I mean, how do you tell a person you care about that they’re terminally ill? It’s just not something you should ever have to do.

She sighed finally and started to raise her confused fear-filled gaze after the ominous question of “So, you’re saying I’m going to die if I don’t get a new one?”

I didn’t answer her. I didn’t need to. I knew that she had to see the discomfort this conversation was putting me through. You just didn’t hold back like this if the outcome had even the slightest chance of being optimistic. And unfortunately, hers was basically a lost cause. That’s why Wolfram and Hart had been dangling her in front of Angel. I thought it had been because they’d just wanted her to revive Angelus by getting rid of his soul. Turned out I couldn’t be more wrong. They wanted to poison the one he had, make him go over the deep end the good ol' Wolfram and Hart way.

Fucking mind games. That’s all that place ever was: a game. Sure took me long enough to realize it.

Right now, though, the little bit of humanity I had left just wanted to hold Darla close and tell her everything would be all right, that I could fix this, but that simply wasn’t possible. And that hurt me in more ways than one. It hurt a lot. It was making me sick with anxiety and regret. No wonder Holland had begun to worry about me. I was acting damn crazy over this. I had thought he was joking when he warned me to not get too deep, that I would become obsessed with my cases. I was finally seeing how that was entirely feasible for even the most hard-ass of lawyers.

Yup, lately my life had been pretty damn enlightening.

A heightened awareness passed slowly over Darla’s face like she understood all of what I’d said now. However, her reaction was a little off from what I’d hoped for. Eyes narrowing, she yanked her hand away. “I’m dying and you weren’t going to tell me!?”

“I didn’t want to believe it myself,” I hastily explained. It was the truth. I’d toted samples of her blood around to nearly a dozen different doctors. “I had more tests run and got second, third, _tenth_ opinions. I just couldn’t accept—“

“ _You_ couldn’t accept it?” There was an offended challenge in that voice and her eyes flashed dangerously. “What about me, Lindsey, what about what I think?”

“I couldn’t tell you even if I had wanted to!” I hadn’t wanted to shout at her, but the exasperation was evident in my voice as I gestured wildly with my hand. “If Holland knew we were having this conversation right now—”

Eyes rolling up to the ceiling and back, Darla let out a venomous laugh of disgust. “Oh, little boy’s scared of big _bad_ Wolfram and Hart.”

My jaw set as I never did bode well with mocking comments, especially not from her. “You do not know what they are truly capable of, Darla,” I said pointedly and gave her serious scowl. “If I had told you, they would have taken me off your case and I wouldn’t have been able to do all of this.”

Though she nodded her head, Darla’s severe disdain was still evident in her stiffened body language and tone. “So, this was to save me?”

“Yes,” I replied as frankly as I could manage before patting my hand to the now unorganized stack of papers between us. “All of it.”

She arched a single appraising brow at me. “Well?”

My brows crinkled confusedly in turn. “Well, what?”

A growl of frustration leapt from her throat. “Did you save me? Am I on the list?” she demanded as she leaned toward me in a fiery earnest.

Of course that would be the logical next question. My gaze adverted to mask my hesitation. The answer was not exactly optimistic.

“You have an advanced syphilitic heart condition,” I started slowly, raising my eyes back to hers. I never could bring myself to talk to someone and not be looking them in the eye, it was just rude otherwise.

“Your heart is slowly bleeding into itself.” Keeping to the blunt words I’d heard multiple times may have not been the best the idea, but it was at least stopping me from getting terribly choked up. “Your name should be on top of the list, but since syphilis is a sexually transmitted disease and since it's not typically found in married couples...”

The blanket shifted as Darla settled back to her previous sitting position and let her hands drop lamely to her lap. “No room on their little list for the whore,” she spat vehemently at the floor in disgust.

My face winced in defeat and my hand twisted into the fabric of the sheet on the floor in my pained empathy. “Darla, I’m sorry,” I said quietly, not knowing how I could make this less of a letdown. “I did all that I could with what I had. These people try to screw you on the smallest things.”

However, Darla didn’t seem to hear the apology as she absentmindedly smoothed a hand over the blanket. “How long?” The sorrowful question was barely over a whisper.

“How long?” I repeated in puzzlement, unsure of which part of what I had said she was referring to.

“How long do I have to live?!” She snapped, slapping the backs of her hands to the floor on either side of her before defensively shimmying up the blanket that had slid down her front when she had let her arms flap outward.

Damn it, I’d missed the obvious next question _again_. Not that I was distraught to my wit’s end over this or anything.

“Hours. Days. Weeks,” I said each with a blunt pause and trill of uncertainty before ringing home the one definite thing I had been counting down this entire time, “No more than a couple months at the most.”

Swallowing over my parched throat and licking my very dry lips, I felt tears threatening my remaining thread of self-control as my lashes became heavy with moisture, but I still managed to keep my voice steady through the quaver pushing at my throat. “It’ll just…happen." I had to take in a shaky breath before I could finish. "You’ll basically fall asleep and never wake up.”

That was just how my little sister and brother had gone—peacefully in their sleep—all those years ago thanks to nasty strain of flu and my parents’ complete lack of medical insurance. I’d been helpless then and though I had all but killed for a different outcome, I was helpless now. History was just repeating itself. I was going to be waiting there on the sidelines, watching as the sickness consumed her weakened body. Call me selfish, but I was not looking forward to it. Not for the third time in my fucked up existence.

Goddamnit, I didn't even want to think about it. Life sure was a bitch sometimes.

Darla turned away from me like she could no longer stand to look at my face. She then reached back and curled the fingers of a hand into the light gray sheet she was wrapped in before yanking it to free her legs as she bunched the fabric to her chest in distress. A soft strangled sob escaped her before she climbed to her feet. I watched in concern as she staggered her way over to a window that overlooked the street.

Unsure of what do now, I slowly stood as well. Biting back my own emotions that were stinging the corners of my eyes and pressing harshly into the back of my throat, I cautiously approached her from behind. I reached out my hand, but hesitated in making contact as I wasn’t sure if she wanted me to.

This had to be a lot to handle all at once. I wish she’d never even found those papers. This was just too much for one person. Admittedly, I had been busting my ass to find a way to fix things on my own. I had wanted this burden to be on me. Not her. She didn’t deserve that. She was here, dying, because of me.

 _I_ had finished the ceremony that brought her back. Not Holland. Not Lilah. _Me._ This was my problem, my mistake. Not anyone else’s and I still intended to make it right. Even if it was the last thing I ever did before Wolfram and Hart sent me to my own personal hellish homestead.

“I was reborn just to die,” Darla said dejectedly to the glass after a sniffled seemingly-deranged laugh. “How sad is that?” The question was choked out in a higher pitch of a whisper. I slid a reassuring massage up her arm with my good hand at the hint of tears in her voice.

Thankfully, none of those tears came and her body shifted rigidly back to rest against my chest. Allowing my arms to drape around hers, I dropped my chin to lightly brush a grazing kiss across her shoulder and up her neck. I could feel the tension coursing through her. Taking in a heavy breath nasally in my mild frustration, I let my lips find her ear.

“You’re not dead yet, Darla,” I rumbled in a quiet point before gently pressing her earlobe between my teeth

With a wince at those words, Darla relaxed into my embrace which I tightened after she delicately squeezed my useless right arm, always one to give attention to the parts that go overlooked.

It still boggled my mind that she had left the Champ and come here, to _me_. I think she finally understood that I had been on her side the entire time. That or she was just shamelessly using me again. Whatever the case, I was happy to know that I had her for the moment.

Of course, any time spent with her was bittersweet. Never knowing which heartbeat would her last. She could go into cardiac arrest at any moment and there would be nothing that I or even a paramedic could do for her. And that moment could be ten minutes, ten days, or even ten weeks from now. As that wonderfully ironic saying goes, she was like a ticking time bomb.

Resting my cheek to her musty and tangled hair, I followed her gaze out the window to the rising the sun that was peeking around the buildings across the street. The ever-present haze of this city made the sky a vibrant wash in shades of orange as the yellow morning light warmed our skin.

“Well, I guess there’s only one thing that I can still do,” Darla said matter-of-factly before her lips pressed into a frown. “I was just starting to understand this disgusting soul.”

Enjoying the gritty feel in the touch of our unwashed skin and the faint rhythm of her heart against the crook of arm, I didn't say a thing as it was better to let her vent. I already knew that once again only fang-boy could help her and that kindled my ever-present resentment for him. Piece of shit probably wouldn't even have the cahones to do it. Hell forbid that he end up with something else to brood and boo-hoo over. Dipshit never did think about anyone but his big-fore-headed self.

“Room with a view,” she mumbled mindlessly under her breath. After a moment’s pause, her hand left my arm to run a nail down the window with a little sigh. “It’s almost depressing that I won’t be able to watch these anymore. Waiting for the moon to rise is so boring after the first century.”


End file.
